Alexandra Stevenson was born on December 15th, 1980 in La Jolla, California. She grew up in San Diego with her mother - her famous father (who I will get to in a moment) was not in the picture during her youth, and in fact, she deliberately shunned his chosen profession once she learned of his identity. Instead, her mother pushed her towards tennis, where she learned the game from Robert Lansdorp (who honed the craft of many successful players, Tracy Austin, Lindsay Davenport, and Pete Sampras among them) and Pete Fischer (who also had a big hand in guiding Sampras). By the time she was a teenager, Alexandra had already exhibited signs of incredible skill as a tennis player, capable of rocketing 100+ mph serves and holding her own in the junior tennis circuit in California.
Alexandra had taken some tentative steps towards professional tennis, playing in the U.S. Open and the Key Biscayne tournaments the year before her big breakthrough, but the 1999 Wimbledon tournament is, for better or worse, forever her calling card. Having graduated high school just two weeks beforehand, she entered the qualifying draw for Wimbledon at Roehampton and successfully moved through the draw, not dropping a set on her way to victory. Unseeded and ranked #86, but having qualified for Wimbledon, Alexandra would go on to shock the tennis world. Using her powerful groundstrokes and serving at speeds up to 120 mph, she made it all the way to the semifinals, in what was her debut performance at the tournament. Along the way, she defeated the #11 seed, Julie Halard-Decugis, in straight sets in the third round, and saved a match point in a second-set tiebreaker to defeat Lisa Raymond in the fourth round.
It was after her fourth-round win that Alexandra began to be dogged by several controversies; first, dealing with some controversial comments that her mother made in the wake of her victory over Halard-Decugis. Alexandra's mother, Samantha (a journalist who was employed by the New York Times at the time of the tournament), made comments that the women's tennis place was an "evil" place, filled with rampant racism and lesbianism, comments which did not sit well with most of the tennis establishment and caused just as much furor off the court as Alexandra's performance did on it. According to an ESPN Outside the Lines piece, though, these comments were made to cause a distraction from the much larger issue: a reporter, having purchased Alexandra's birth certificate a year ago and holding onto the news for the better part of year, was set to drop a bombshell revelation - that Alexandra was the daughter of former NBA superstar, Julius "Dr. J" Erving, conceived out of wedlock. Alexandra steadfastly refused to answer questions regarding the rumor during the tournament, even as she defeated fellow qualifier Jelena Dokic (who herself had a strong Wimbledon that year, knocking out the #1 player Martina Hingis in the first round) in the quarterfinals. Erving, who initially denied the rumors, confirmed them a few days later. Meanwhile at Wimbledon, Alexandra lost handily, 6-1, 6-1, to the eventual champion, Lindsay Davenport in the semifinals, and her life would never be the same; I've read stories of how she described being overwhelmed by the constant hordes of people referring to her as "Dr. J's daughter," something which begin to overshadow her on-court success.
The 1999 Wimbledon tournament was the peak of Alexandra's career; she has, to date, never again won back to back matches in a Grand Slam tournament, nor was she able to claim any tournament titles. She did have a bit of a resurgence, rankings-wise, in 2002, where she reached two tournament finals and finished the year at a career-high ranking of #18. She also won a doubles title with (name redacted) the same year, as well. Since 2003, however, injuries have gotten the better of her. She tore the labrum in her right shoulder during Wimbledon that year, and tried to gamely play through it for a while, but the injury wound up necessitating surgery and years of rehab. She hasn't appeared in a Grand Slam main draw since 2004, and has spent most of the last decade on the Challengers tour. Still, she's plays on to this day - whether admirable or foolish (I say the former - I'm always in support of athletes playing on until THEY decide they want to quit), she continues to plug away at her tennis career in the hopes of having one more shot at glory.
There was, obviously, a ton of hullabaloo over Alexandra's famous father; as best I can tell, they remained estranged until 2008, when she reconciled with him, to both heal the rift between them and for financial reasons, as detailed in the aforementioned Outside the Lines piece - she had been struggling with more injuries, had run out of money and sponsors, but still believed she had a place in the sport. The healing process began, but according to a recent interview I've read of hers, they've been estranged again since 2013. None of this could have been easy for her, and it's yet another thing where I hate to bring all of this type of crap up, but it's played such a definite role in her career that it's all worth noting. Frankly, I feel very bad for Alexandra - she asked for none of this, and couldn't help the circumstances under which she was born, but when you have a famous father, of course the bloodhounds are going to run wild with the story. No matter what happens with the remainder of her career, I hope she's found peace - she got a raw deal pretty early on, both in terms of dealing with her parental lineage and her numerous injuries - and if she chooses to keep on trying to come back, more power to her!
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